Rayne appeared outside her door and pulled out a necklace from under her shirt, fitting the key on the end into the lock. She opened the door and walked inside closing it gently behind her. She walked to the back of the house by-passing the kitchen and the hallway that led to her room and the bathroom and straight into the living room. She had a feeling that Tsunade would be sending her straight out on a mission so she had packed the night before. Everything was ready and sitting on the couch underneath the window. She could hardly believe that when she walked into the house the night before that it looked the exact same as it had when she left it nine years ago except for the thick layer of dust that seemed to cover everything in the house.
She picked up her stuff and turned back around to the door. She walked out and locked the door behind her, tucking the necklace back under her shirt. Immediately she made her way to the main gate to wait for the rest of her team. Once there she jumped up into a tree and lay down on one of the branches to wait. It was weird for her to think that she had a team again, she hadn't had one in nine years. She leaned back against the tree trunk and closed her eyes, knowing she still had forty-five minutes until she asked the others to meet her.
Barley five minutes later, Rayne opened her eyes and looked down at the base of the tree. Back in Tsundae's office she had memorized the chakra signatures of the other three. She jumped down and landed beside Sasuke who was sitting against the base of the tree.
"You're here early, Rayne-san," Sasuke stated.
"Rayne. Just Rayne, please"
Sasuke nodded his head and closed his eyes. Rayne sat down beside him and leaned against the trunk as well. A few minutes passed before anyone spoke up.
"Rayne, if you don't mind me asking; why did you come to Konoha?" The thought had been bugging Sasuke constantly since he had met Rayne. Normally he would just keep his thoughts to himself, but there was something about this girl that made him open up a bit.
"I just figured it was time to come home."
"Home? You're from Konoha?"
"Originally, yes. I haven't been here in nine years though."
"Hn."
"Why do you ask?" Rayne was surprised that Sasuke was talking to her at all. From what she heard from Kakashi, Sasuke was the type to keep things to himself. So why was he asking her these questions?
"I figured I should get to know the leader of this mission before we actually head out."
"Well if that's the case…"
For the next thirty minutes, Sasuke and Rayne were talking about themselves, getting to know each other. Then there was a moment where Sasuke faded off, looking sidelong at Rayne, hoping she wouldn't ask questions.
"If what you were saying is about the Orochimaru thing," Rayne said, "I already know."
"Who told you?"
"Kakashi and the bastard himself."
"Orochimaru?"
"Yes. While we're on that topic, I want to say that I am in no way linked to him anymore."
"But you were linked to him at one point?"
"I was trained by all three Sannin."
"Oh."
"Look, just pay no attention to that. What's in the past can stay in the past."
"Hn. Next question: why do you wear those sunglasses all the time?"
Rayne smiled and brushed a piece of hair out of her face. "That's for me to know and for you to maybe figure out later."
At that moment, Sakura and Naruto came walking up the road to the gates. The smile slipped of Rayne's face as well as the ghost of a smile on Sasuke's face. They stopped talking or paying attention to each other all together as the two approached.
"Hey Sasuke-kun, Rayne-san," Sakura said smiling.
"Hey Rayne-san, teme," Naruto said right after her.
"Hn," both Sasuke and Rayne said in unison. They looked at each other and smirked, while Sakura and Naruto looked on in confusion.
Rayne stood up and picked up her bag before turning back to the others. "Alright, first things first, my name is Rayne, no honorifics, just Rayne. Second, our mission is to stop a group of bandits who are attacking travelers about five miles away. They are all B-ranking missing-nin, so we should be careful of traps. Get it, got it, good! Let's go." She turned and walked towards the gates, feeling the other three follow behind her.
Twenty minutes later they were deep into the forest and getting closer to there destination. It almost seemed to quiet and Rayne kept an eye out for anything that seemed even the slightest bit out of place.
"Do you even know where we are going?!" Naruto called out from the back of the group. Rayne's eye twitched in annoyance and she would have turned around and hit him upside the head if they had not been on a mission.
"Of course I know where I am going," Rayne said in a much quieter voice but making sure the others could still hear her. "I grew up in Konoha so naturally I would know the area around it."
"Oh I see. Then why did you…." Naruto was cut off by a clang of metal ringing in the air. He looked beside him and saw two kunai and a shurikan imbedded in a tree beside his head. He looked back to Rayne and saw her staring at a certain spot in the canopy with her hand positioned over her kunai holster.
Sakura and Sasuke were stopped on a tree branch beside Naruto having witnessed Rayne throw the kunai at Naruto. A first they though it was because of all the questions he was asking and then the saw and heard the kunai connect with other metal and saw the kunai and shurikan imbed themselves in the tree beside Naruto's head.
'How did she know they were going to come from over there?' Sakura thought.
'How did she react so fast without seeing them first?' thought Sasuke.
Rayne glared at Naruto and motioned for Sakura and Sasuke to move in closer. "This is why you are supposed to be quiet on these types of missions. That way the enemy doesn't have a chance to strike first." Rayne seemed to reach into her pack for a minute before taking her hand out although seemingly with nothing in it. "Get ready, they're coming."
Five ninja came out of the spot in the forest canopy that Rayne was staring at. She glanced at the others to see that they were positioned and waiting for her signal. She nodded her head ever so slightly and saw the three of them take of to intercept a ninja each. Rayne stayed where she was as the other two approached her. They stopped on a branch directly across from Rayne and stared at her. Rayne blinked slowly and gave them a look that plainly said 'what the hell are you doing?'
The ninja that was closest to her spoke. "What do they think they're doing, sending a child out here?"
Rayne's eye twitched; a habit that only happened when she was annoyed. "Excuse me," she managed to get out through clenched teeth.
Both ninja seemed to ignore her as the other spoke up. "I know, why would they let a child fight the two of us at once?"
Rayne's eye twitched again and she was glaring at the two on the branch opposite her. "If you're talking about me, I'd take back everything you just said. I'm 18 and able to kick your asses in my sleep." The two ninja laughed and Rayne snapped; she took off through the trees, making a circle around the clearing the others were fighting in. She looked behind her to see the two ninja following her and smirked. She stopped and landed sideways on a tree, only to bounce back at the ninja, kunai in her hand. Metal met metal as one of the ninja raised his own kunai to block hers. She twisted away in mid air and brought her foot down on top of the guy's head. He collapsed, his head bouncing off the tree branch below him and fell to the forest floor.
"One dead, one to go." Rayne turned to the other ninja who had a sheer look of anger on his face. He charged at Rayne and she blocked or dodged all the punches, kicks and weapons as well as landing a few blows of her own. Just as he tried to punch her mid section, she back flipped over his arm and landed a few feet away, her hands already moving into the pattern of a well memorized jutsu. A clone appeared beside Rayne and the other ninja sneered.
"Too much for you to handle by yourself?"
"No, but it's a lot more fun this way." Rayne nodded to the clone and it charged at the ninja, engaging him in close hand-to-hand combat. When the clone was in close enough Rayne gave the signal and…
"Bushin Daibakuha no Jutsu" The clone exploded, taking the enemy with it. Rayne smirked and jumped down to a lower branch to watch how the others were holding up. As she scanned the area, she noticed that Sakura and the ninja she was fighting were very close to where she was now. As she watched, Sakura was thrown backwards into the trunk of the tree that Rayne was currently sitting in. Rayne saw the ninja throw something and noticed that Sakura wouldn't get out of the way in time. She flipped over, keeping her legs wrapped around the branch and grabbed onto Sakura, hauling her up, but not before getting a kunai and a couple senbon imbedded in her back. She pulled herself and Sakura up onto the tree branch, and winced as she moved her shoulder the wrong way, causing the weapons to dig further into her back.
"Rayne-san! Here let me heal that for you." Sakura sat across from Rayne on the same tree branch, her eyes slightly widened as she gazed at Rayne's back.
"Not now, there are still battles going on. Stay here and I'll finish off the ninja you were fighting." Before Sakura could protest, Rayne had jumped down from the tree and was now standing directly in front of the ninja Sakura had just been fighting. Rayne's hands once again blurred as she made a few hand signs.
"Kaze no Yaiba." At first it seemed like nothing had happened and the ninja just laughed. Rayne lunged at the ninja and ducked under his punch, and making a slashing motion at his side. Suddenly blood poured out of the gaping wound in the ninja's side and he fell dead next to Rayne. She smirked and released her grip on what Sakura supposed was a sword of some kind. Rayne surveyed the rest of the clearing and noticed that Naruto and Sasuke were both finished with their fights and staring at her, probably having seen her whole little show. Rayne sighed and sat down, trying to turn her head to see how bad her injury was. Sakura dropped down beside her and started to work on healing her as the other two made their way over to the two girls.
"Rayne-san, you didn't have to do that," Sakura said.
"I know, but I did it anyway." Rayne short reply was said with a hint of annoyance.
"You do realize that if that hit a litter higher and to the left that would have been fatal." Sasuke stood leaning against a tree opposite of Sakura and Rayne, with Naruto sitting on the ground a little ways away.
"Still, it was amazing how she killed him even though she was injured!"
Rayne picked up a rock and threw it at Naruto's head. "Would you shut up!? There are still a few more of them."
"Back to the topic at hand," Sakura stated. "Why did you pull me out of the way? You could have been killed."
Rayne sighed and pushed up her glasses and rubbed her eyes. Once her glasses were back in place, she looked straight ahead, seemingly into nothing. "I don't care if I die. As long as I die so others can continue to live, I'm fine with death."
There was a resonating silence that followed, in which the others stared at Rayne, questions in their eyes. Suddenly Rayne stood up and Sakura immediately grabbed her wrist. Rayne shook her free and made a few hand seals. Fire burst in fine lines from her fingers and up into the trees. Not even a second later, three charred bodies fell to the forest floor.
"I told you there were still more," Rayne said as she flopped back down. She quietly unwound the wires from her fingers and pulled, tearing them away from the tree branches.
Naruto looked from the cut, falling tree branches, to Rayne, back to the tree and finally back to Rayne. "When did you get the wires get in place?"
"During the fight, but I think I overdid it a little," Rayne said as she looked at the mutilated trees. She laid back and propped herself up on her elbows. She sighed and said something quietly under her breath, then looked around. After a minute she stopped looking around and pushed her glasses up to rub her eyes again.
"Why do you always wear those glasses?" Sakura asked.
"Yeah! I don't think I've ever seen you without them," Naruto chipped in.
Rayne sighed yet again and smiled slightly. "I'm sure that all of you have secrets that you don't want others to know because of a doubt in trust." At this point she glanced at Naruto, who's eyes had widened just the slightest. Her smile grew a bit and she continued, "I'm the same way. I know I have trust problems, which is why I wear these sunglasses."
Naruto scratched the back of his head, confused. "That made no sense."
"It made sense, you just can't wrap your tiny little brain around it." Sasuke stood leaning against the tree with his eyes closed.
"Teme!"
"Naruto, stop, "Rayne interrupted. "We should head back now, it's getting late." Rayne stood up and swayed. She barley made it three steps in front of her before she toppled over, near enough to the tree to grab it before she fell over completely. She heard a soft sigh from beside her and felt and arm go around he waist to stabilize her. She looked over and saw Sasuke helping her to stand.
"Do you think you could get on my back?" he asked.
Rayne was about to argue that she could handle herself just fine, then she remembered that Sasuke was just a stubborn as her. She decided not to argue and just said, "Yeah, I think so."
Naruto and Sakura stood off to the side, watching Sasuke help Rayne to get onto his back.
"Why is Sasuke helping her?" Sakura questioned.
"I don't know. He hardly helps when asked, let alone when he's not."
"You guys ready?" Rayne asked from Sasuke's back looking down on them .She had already managed to get onto Sasuke's back and they were up in the tree waiting for Naruto and Sakura to come along. "Coming," Sakura and Naruto answered in unison. Together they all started to make their way back to Konoha.
Little did Naruto, Sasuke and I know that this was just the beginning. This was just the start of a greater story that was to be played out in the future. The key thing at that moment though, was that Rayne finally had somebody to trust. Actually, three somebodies.
A/N: YAY!!! My longest chapter even written for anything I think ;p Hope you enjoyed!
The two jutsu used in this chapter are:
Bushin Daibakuha (Clone Great Explosion)- a shadow clone that explodes on command; A-rank jutsu
Kaze no Yaiba (Blade of Wind)- creates and invisible blade out of wind; A-rank jutsu